Repressive "Reform" In Cyprus: Will They Get Away With It?

After four years of international pressure, the parliament of the Republic of Cyprus
voted May 21 to change its law criminalizing consensual homosexual relations between
adults. However, the new law appears to be even more repressive than the old one.

The law would punish "encouraging" homosexuality, as well as public
manifestations of it--including placing personals ads for gay partners. According to Scott
Long, European researcher for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
(IGLHRC), "The new law is no "reform" at all, but a new, improved
instrument of repression. It threatens not only privacy but basic freedoms of expression
and association."

Background
Article 171 of the Cypriot penal code punished "carnal knowledge of any person
against the order of nature" with five years' imprisonment. In 1993, the European
Court of Human Rights found that the law violated privacy protections in Article 8 of the
European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Cyprus
was required to repeal the law.

The Cypriot House of Representatives stalled decriminalization proposals, however,
during the ensuing four-year debate. The dominant Orthodox Church militantly opposed
changes, and threatened to excommunicate parliamentarians who supported them. Finally, the
Council of Europe--an umbrella organization of European states, Eastern as well as
Western, which is larger and less integrated than the European Union (EU)--threatened
Cyprus with expulsion if the law was not repealed by May 29 of this year.

The deadlock was broken only days before the deadline, when Orthodox Archbishop
Chrysostom declared he would accept limited changes which ensured that homosexuality was
not "promoted."

The outcome
The compromise bill passed with 36 votes in favor and 8 against. Details of its contents
have been slow to emerge. However, according to reports in the Cypriot press, the new law
replaces the gender-neutral reference to "carnal knowledge," contained in the
old Article 171, with references to "unnatural licentiousness between men." It
criminalizes placing advertisements to ask for gay partners, as well as making
"indecent proposals," and contains other ambiguous phrases designed to ensure
that homosexuality is not "encouraged." It is also reported that stipulated
penalties for homosexual rape are significantly higher than those for the heterosexual
crime.

The Cyprus Mail, a local newspaper, calls the bill "ridiculous, petulant, and
spiteful." Local activist Alecos Modinos, who brought the 1993 case before the
European Court, told the press that "They have abolished one law to make another one
much worse."

Amnesty International also condemned the law, saying that "We believe that
discrimination against homosexuals continues because the sentences provided for under the
new law are not analogous with those stipulated for the same crimes committed by
heterosexuals."

Basic freedoms under threat
The new law threatens to relegate gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to permanent second-class
citizenship, by ensuring that a range of rights including free speech and freedom of
association will be denied them.

A 1994 decision by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, known as Toonen v.
Australia, held that such discriminatory enjoyment of rights based on sexual
orientation violates international law.

Scott Long of IGLHRC noted that the Cypriot situation resembles strategies used in
recent years by the government of Romania to evade its international responsibilities.
"When the Council of Europe demanded that Romania repeal a similar sodomy law, they
responded with legislation that apparently permitted 'private' acts, but actually punished
with imprisonment any public expression, endorsement, or approval of homosexuality."

Long said the key test now will be whether the Council of Europe continues to exert
pressure, or accepts the new Cypriot law as a genuine reform.

"Other European institutions must also take a stand," he said. "Cyprus
wants to join the European Union. The EU has an opportunity to make clear that candidates
for membership cannot legislate away basic human rights."

"This fraudulent 'reform' puts new pressure on international organizations and
European institutions," Long says. "They must now prove they believe in full and
equal rights for everyone--and will not be satisfied by cosmetic and misleading legal
change."

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
advocates for a world in which the fundamental human rights of gay men, lesbians,
bisexuals, transgendered people and people with HIV/AIDS are respected and accorded the
protection of international human rights law.